1. Field of the Invention
The disclosed embodiments relate generally to tools for tracking employee time and attendance and, more particularly, to systems and methods for real-time labor management and timesheet reporting.
2. Description of the Related Art
An important aspect of any business is tracking employee time and attendance, both for payroll purposes and also in order to efficiently allocate company resources. A number of commercially-available tools have been developed to facilitate this function, including Time Tracking Solutions from Hourdoc.com of Houston, Tex., USA. Hourdoc.com's Time Tracking Solutions is an advanced Web-based labor management system that allows users to manage their work schedule over the Internet. With Time Tracking Solutions, users may log on from any Web-capable computer and record, for example, days worked, clock-in time, clock-out time, breaks taken, vacations planned, and the like. Additional details concerning the various features and functionality of Hourdoc.com's Time Tracking Solutions may be obtained at http://www.hourdoc.com which is incorporated herein by specific reference.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,277,717 discloses a “dispatch communication and management system and method, preferably based on the SMS function of the GSM specification, allows a dispatcher and a remote service technician to exchange messages in a prescribed format to alternately enter event information into a customer service record.”
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 20070232333 discloses a “method and apparatus for collecting work related information from a mobile employee. A mobile employee sends a short message by simply pressing one key on his mobile phone, the system of the present invention collects the geographic, time, work status and employee information of the mobile employee. A mobile employee sends a short message to a mobile employee information collector. An SMS message receiver receives the short message and sends a geographic information query to a geographic information pager, and an employee information query to an employee information pager. A data processing unit receives the short message, the geographic information and employee information of the mobile employee and triggers a workflow in a data management system. The workflow could be used for keeping time record, managing inventory, assigning tasks, etc.”
PCT International Publication No. WO 99/41707 discloses a “system and method for capturing and handling employment-related or time-related information from temporary or permanent employees utilizes a plurality of user terminals to capture timekeeping information. One or more user terminals are provided to employees for the entry of time spent working on one or more tasks. The user terminals can be portable, hand held data entry devices that allow the employees to key-in or otherwise enter their time worked for one or more employers or particular projects. The time entered can be reviewed by the employees prior to submission. Upon submission, the time entries can be reviewed by an appropriate party for correctness and checked for formatting or content errors. Once reviewed and checked, the approved entries can be forwarded to a processing system for assimilation.”